Accused 'Flew Into Rage'

The Illinois man charged with killing his 8-year-old daughter and her best friend told investigators he flew into a rage when his daughter defied his order to come home and repeatedly stabbed both girls with a small knife, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Jerry Branton Hobbs III, just released from a Texas prison last month, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Mother's Day slayings of his daughter, Laura Hobbs, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9.

"This was a slaughter of two little girls," Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Jeffrey L. Pavletic said during a bond hearing for Hobbs.

In gripping and disturbing testimony, Pavletic read from Hobbs' purported confession during the bond hearing in the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan.

Hobbs, 34, told police he was already smoldering Sunday because Sheila Hollabaugh, Laura's mother and Hobbs' girlfriend, had allowed the girl to go play even though she was supposed to be grounded for stealing $40 from her a week earlier, Pavletic said. Hobbs was living with Hollabaugh and her parents.

At 4:30 p.m., he went into Beulah Park to confront Laura, Pavletic said. He found the girls and ordered his daughter home, and when she refused he began punching her, briefly knocking her unconscious, Hobbs allegedly told police.

Krystal tried to help her friend and pulled out a "potato knife" -- apparently Texas slang for a small knife with a 4- to 6-inch blade -- which Hobbs took away from her and used to stab the girls, Hobbs reportedly said.

"He said he grabbed (Laura), she grabbed back, and they started hitting each other, and that's when he hit her and punched Krystal," said Cmdr. William Valko of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. "Then he stabbed Krystal, and as his daughter is waking up he stabbed her."

"Laura had 20 stab wounds. She was stabbed in the neck, she was stabbed in the abdomen, she was stabbed once in each eye," Pavletic said, adding that Krystal was stabbed 11 times.

Hobbs told police he dragged their bodies 20 feet to a wooded area of the park, Pavletic said. Their bodies later were found, faces beaten and bloodied, lying side by side with their shoes neatly placed next to them. *